


Other Possible Lives

by listerinezero



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M, Reincarnation, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1195998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/listerinezero/pseuds/listerinezero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time Charles and Erik die, they start their lives over again, and each new life starts a few years later than the last one. This is one of those timelines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was Unforgotten's idea, based on the novel Replay by Ken Grimwood, which I also read at her recommendation. I was going to write this whole story and all the different timelines, but unfortunately I don't have time, so I'm scrapping it.
> 
> But Unforgotten is writing her version of this, so hopefully we'll get to read that story soon!

The second time Erik died, it was a Thursday night. He was eighty-six years old, and he was in bed beside Charles, just as he had been every night for the past seventy years, since the first time he died. Somehow, someway, he and Charles had both been given second chances, and had woken up back in their own bodies as children. Charles had found himself back in elementary school in New York, and Erik had found himself back in the camps, being asked to move a coin for his mother’s life. This time, he could, and he did. He and his mother escaped with their lives and eventually made it to the United States, where Erik spent the rest of his life at Charles’ side until that cold Thursday night, when Erik passed away quietly, in Charles’ arms, having lived a long, happy life.

Then he woke again.

An infant was wailing and something smelled foul. Someone nudged him and hummed, in a half-forgotten language, “Erik, sweetheart, will you get her, please?”

 _Magda_.

Erik sat bolt upright. It was Anya, in her little basket beside the bed, howling for a diaper change, and Magda, her long, dark hair cascading over the pillow beside him.

It had happened again. But this time he was twenty-five. And instead of standing in front of Nazi officers, he was in bed with his wife, his daughter a few feet away.

“Erik, please,” Magda asked again.

Anya was red-faced and reaching out for him. He never imagined he’d see her again, not ever. But there she was, crying out for him, and as he lifted her into his arms, Erik felt his own eyes start to well.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly as he hugged her tight. “You’re going to be all right,” he told her. “I’m going to take care of you.”

Magda rolled over and smiled up at him, her almond eyes sparkling, and with that, Erik began to sob with joy.

 

*

 

_Dear Charles,_

_I don’t quite know how to say this, but I’m back again. I’m assuming you are, too._

_I know that we said that if by some miracle this happened again, we would find each other. We would always find each other. But I can’t this time. I’m with Magda and Anya, and the twins are on their way. I love you, I will always love you, but I can’t leave them._

_We will meet again some day._

_Love always,_

_Erik_

 

*

 

It was nearly ten years before Erik saw Charles again.

Erik, Magda, and the kids had been living in Budapest when Wanda’s and Pietro’s powers manifested. By that time Erik had explained his powers to Magda - slowly, gently - and she had come around to the idea of his having extra-human abilities. But Wanda and Pietro - they were her babies. She worried about them, pacing in the middle of the night, asking Erik what they should do.

“What if they hurt someone by accident?” she would whisper to Erik. “What if they hurt themselves?”

“They will be fine, _Schatz_ ,” Erik assured her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and kissing her neck. “All children are clumsy. They all need to learn to handle themselves. These two will just have to work a little harder. I will teach them myself.”

“How am I going to send them to school? What if someone…” She took a breath before she could finish the sentence. “What if someone tried to take them away?”

“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Erik told her, but she was still tense, chewing on her thumbnail and staring off into the distance.

He’d wanted to keep this forever. He’d wanted to stay in this idyll as long as he could manage it. But if it would make Magda happy, he was willing to end it.

They arrived in Westchester six months later.

“I thought you said this was a school?” Magda asked, clutching Wanda’s hand as they approached the gate.

“It was.”

The Xavier mansion appeared to be abandoned. There was no sign, no gate, not even a mailbox. The grounds, which in his previous life Erik had tended to personally, had been overrun with weeds and wildflowers. There were no cars in the driveway, nor were there any lights on in the windows.

Erik rang the doorbell anyway, and a minute later, was greeted by an elderly woman he did not recognize.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m looking for Charles Xavier.” Hearing himself say Charles’ name, Erik realized for the first time that he’d developed a thick Hungarian accent. He quite liked it - an audible mark of his new life - though he doubted it would survive more than a few months back in New York.

“I’m sorry, sir, but Charles doesn’t live here,” said the woman. “This is his house, but he hasn’t lived here since he was a little boy. He lives in New York City.”

Erik arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Would you be able to give me his address? Or telephone number?”

The housekeeper looked over Erik and his family, no doubt seeing a bunch of poor immigrants, shivering in the November air. “Why don’t you all come in for a cup of tea? You can call Charles from the telephone here.”

Magda smiled and nodded. “Thank you, yes! Thank you.” It was nearly all the English she knew.

The house was as abandoned inside as it appeared on the outside. The air was musty and the few pieces of furniture that remained were covered in sheets for protection. But there was a working telephone in the living room (in Erik’s previous life, the visitor’s lobby) where Erik could call Charles while Magda and the children gathered in the kitchen.

He answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Charles?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Erik.”

A pause. “Erik?”

“Yes. I’m, um. I’m at the house. In Westchester.”

“Oh,” said Charles. “I don’t live there anymore.”

“I see that. I wish I’d done a little research before I brought my family all the way from Hungary,” Erik chuckled wearily.

“You did what?”

“Wanda and Pietro. Their powers. I wanted to enroll them at the school. I just assumed… I guess I assumed you would have started the school without me.”

Charles’ voice softened. “I didn’t, Erik. I’m sorry.”

Erik said nothing, instead listening to the racket of Magda and the children trying to make tea in the kitchen that he and Charles had shared for the better part of seventy years.

“I would like to see you, though,” said Charles.

His mind had wandered so far away that Erik had barely heard what Charles had said.

“Hm?”

“I said I’d like to see you. I would really like to meet Magda, if that would be okay.”

The thought made Erik’s palms sweaty, but he said, “Yes, I would like that.”

“Can you manage to get to Manhattan from there? I can give you some money for the train.”

“That won’t be necessary. Where should we meet you?”

Charles gave Erik his address in the city. It was a few blocks from WashingtonSquarePark, where young men strummed guitars, and around the corner from a protest where signs waved in the cold breeze: “OUT OF VIETNAM!” “BRING OUR TROOPS HOME!” This time, when Erik approached the house, there was no doubt that this one was lived in. Rock and roll flooded from the windows and the stoop was crowded with potted plants, all barely surviving the recent cold snap.

When Erik rang this doorbell, a voice called out, “I’ll get it!” and when the door opened, it was Raven on the other side. Her hair was long and her feet were bare. Erik’s heart skipped a beat, but she didn’t recognize him.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m looking for Charles. My name is Erik.”

Raven didn’t need to go and find him; Charles emerged from behind her, grinning.

“You made it,” he said.

Erik grinned back. “I made it.”

For a minute they just took each other in. Ten years ago they were old men. Now Charles stood before Erik, strong and handsome, his brown hair falling over his ears in loose waves, his sideburns longer than Erik had ever seen them. He looked happy. Erik hoped that Charles saw the same thing in him.

“Come in!” said Charles. “Come in! Introduce me!”

Waving for Magda to follow, Erik stepped inside Charles’ modest townhouse. Well, modest for the 1960s, at least. In forty years it would be worth millions, but surely Charles knew that already. When they were all inside, Erik unbuttoned his coat and nervously made his introductions.

“Charles, this is my wife, Magda. Magda, this is the man I was telling you about, who knows about mutations.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said slowly, with a nervous smile.

“It’s so wonderful to meet you,” Charles grinned, taking her in, but Erik could see his eyes drifting eagerly toward the kids.

“This is my daughter Anya, and this is Pietro, and Wanda,” Erik continued.

Charles shook each of their hands. “I’m Charles. I’m so happy to meet you.” He then turned to the littlest one, clutching Magda’s hand. “And who might you be?”

Erik could barely contain his smile. “This is Jakob. He’s three.”

“Jakob,” Charles smiled through shining eyes. “I’m very happy to meet you, Jakob.”

Jakob put his thumb in his mouth and buried his face in Magda’s legs.

Magda laughed and petted his head. “He is…” she started to say, then made a face.

“He’s shy,” Erik filled in.

“Yes,” said Magda. “I’m sorry. My English is not so good yet.”

Charles discreetly wiped a tear from his eye. “That’s fine! It’s okay.” He turned and waved Raven over from where she had been hovering near the fireplace. “This is my sister, Raven.”

Raven said hello to them all, looking as though the Lehnsherrs were the oddest creatures she’d ever laid eyes on. In another life, Erik would have teased her for it, but today he was a foreign stranger, invading her living room.

“And one more,” Charles said, then called up the stairs, “Fred? Freddie, can you come down here?”

Erik’s heart was in his throat when, a moment later, an attractive young man in his late twenties glided down the stairs as gracefully as Gene Kelly. He was clean cut and wearing stylish bellbottoms, and the way he smiled at Charles – bursting with perfect white teeth and genuine affection - made Erik forget for a second that Magda stood at his side.

“This is Fred Regan,” Charles said with an anxious smile. “Freddie, this is Erik, his wife Magda, and their children: Anya, Wanda, Pietro, and Jakob.”

Fred was all cheer and politeness, telling them all how wonderful it was to meet them and welcoming them to New York; it made Erik slightly dizzy.

“You are the brother?” Magda asked, lifting Jakob into her arms.

“No, no,” Charles and Fred both chuckled nervously, nearly in unison. “Friend. Just friend.”

 

*

 

Charles helped them get set up in a hotel nearby for the time being. With the Xavier money funding their stay, they were able to get two rooms for the six of them: Erik, Magda, and Jakob in one room, the older three children in the second. A pillow fight broke out within minutes.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Erik grabbed Pietro by the shoulder and pulled him away from the bedding. “Do I have to sleep in here to keep you from wrecking the place?”

Magda stood beside Anya, her arm around her. Anya was nearly as tall as Magda now. “We are here as guests of Papa’s friend. Best behavior, do you understand? Or no Statue of Liberty tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to go to the stupid Statue of Liberty!” Pietro whined.

“Then you can stay here and play with pillows while the rest of us go have fun!” said Magda, then in stilted English: “Say thank you for Mr. Xavier.”

“Thank you, Mr. Xavier,” the kids all groaned in unison.

“You’re very welcome. It’s the least I can do,” Charles said with a smile. “Can I take you all out to dinner tonight? You must be starving after such a long day. There’s a restaurant a few blocks from here that we like, and I’ll call Fred and Raven to come and meet us.”

Erik looked to Magda for a reaction, but of course Magda hadn’t understood a word past “you’re welcome.” After a translation and a quick discussion, Erik told Charles, “We would like that, but maybe tomorrow. They’re all very tired. I think we may just get a pizza and go to sleep.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Charles told Magda with a nod, then privately, to Erik, _I hope we can find time to get together, just the two of us. We should talk._

Hearing Charles in his mind again sent a chill down Erik’s spine.

 _Tonight, after they turn in,_ Erik replied. _A game of chess, perhaps?_

_I’d like that._

“Well, I ought to get back,” Charles said aloud. “Fred will be wondering where I’ve run off to. Erik, it’s great to see you,” he added, shaking his hand. “Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.”

With that, Charles left, and the pillow fight resumed in earnest, this time with Magda in the lead. When they’d worn themselves out, Erik went to the corner and brought back a large pizza for the six of them. They ate gathered together on the large bed in front of the television, until Erik looked down at his lap and realized that Jakob had fallen asleep, nestled against his chest.

“I think it might be time for bed,” he whispered to Magda, who lifted Jakob into her arms and carried him back to the other hotel room. The other children were all in their pajamas within the hour, and they’d soon be fast asleep, in spite of their protests.

Magda changed into her nightclothes as well, but Erik put on his hat and coat.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m not tired,” Erik told her. “I’m going to go see Charles. He invited me to come over for a game of chess.”

Magda picked up a scarf and put it around Erik’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss. “Don’t stay out too late,” she said.

“I won’t,” he told her, with another kiss. “I promise.”

Erik walked the six blocks to Charles’ house, Magda’s breath still sweet on his lips, and rang the bell. Strange to have to be so formal with Charles. Stranger still to arrive at Charles’ house and be greeted by someone named Fred.

“It’s Erik, right?” he asked with a friendly smile. “Come inside! It’s freezing out there. Would you like something hot to drink? A cup of tea? Or coffee?”

“No, thank you.” Erik brushed the snow off his shoulders and took off his hat.

Charles appeared from the back of the house and rested his hand briefly on Fred’s shoulder. “Erik and I were just going to play a game of chess.”

“Ah, I’ll leave you to it, then.” Fred leaned into Erik and confided with a goofy wink, “He’s tried to teach me to play, but I’m awful at it.”

“You’re not awful,” Charles assured him. “You’re just not…”

“Good at it?” Fred filled in the blank with a laugh.

Charles laughed, too. “You said it, not me!” He turned to Erik. “I have the chessboard set up in the study.”

Erik followed him to the rear of the house, into a small room with a desk and a table, where their old chessboard sat. It was the one that had been Charles’ grandfather’s, the one they’d played on every night in their previous life, and whenever Magneto visited in his life before that. And now here it was, in a Greenwich Village townhouse, where Charles played with Fred, who probably couldn’t tell a rook from a pawn.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to drink?” Charles asked.

“I wouldn’t say no to a scotch.”

Charles shook his head. “I don’t keep alcohol in the house anymore. Fred won’t allow it.”

“Ah.”

Then Fred had done something for Charles that Erik never managed in either life.

“He seems nice,” Erik offered, uncomfortably.

That made Charles grin. “He is. He’s wonderful. I hope you’ll have a chance to get to know him a bit while you’re here.” Charles took a seat behind the white pieces. “I can’t believe I finally met Magda,” he said quietly.

Erik sat on the opposite side of the board with a sigh. “Neither can I.”

“She’s beautiful. She looks like Elizabeth Taylor. And Anya looks just like you.”

“Poor girl,” Erik smirked.

“That’s the highest compliment I can give, my friend. She’s a miracle.”

Erik nodded. “Something like that.”

Charles moved a pawn. “You’re happier than I think I’ve ever seen you.”

Erik didn’t know what to say to that. He was content, yes, but he refused to compare it to his previous life with Charles. The two lives weren’t comparable, and it wasn’t fair to Magda or Charles to try. He hoped that Charles could read that in him, because for the life of him he didn’t know where to begin to try explaining it aloud.

Instead, Erik changed the subject. “You didn’t start the school.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t want to.”

“I didn’t realize the progress of the mutant race was subject to your whims,” Erik said with more bite than he meant.

Charles didn’t look up from the chessboard. “But they are subject to yours? I haven’t heard of any mutant renaissance in Eastern Europe these past few years.”

“I have a family to take care of, Charles. What did you expect me to do?”

This would have been the usual point in their argument, when things begin to tense, when Charles would have reached for his drink. Instead he sat back, his fingers tapping on the arm of the chair. “I haven’t expected you to do anything, and you have no right to have expected anything from me. You stayed in Europe. You stayed with Magda. You chose her. You gave up your say in my life the minute you mailed that letter.”

“People depended on your school, Charles. I was depending on your school.” Erik tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but failed. “I understand you were disappointed, but that’s no reason to leave entire generations of mutants in the lurch.”

“I gave my life to mutants. Twice,” Charles snapped, then took a deep breath to steady himself. “You’ve made your choices, Erik, and so have I. I’m under no obligation to live my life according to your expectations, or anyone else’s. For all I know, I could wake up tomorrow and be back in the school, back in that chair. I'm not going to let you make me feel guilty for enjoying this life while I have it.” He moved a knight. “Maybe this time I just want to live for myself. I deserve that as much as you do.”

Still Erik pressed the question: “And what am I supposed to do? I emigrated with a wife and four children, two of whom have exceptional powers and no control over them. Where are we to go now?”

Charles didn’t answer. He was looking past Erik, his face softened into fondness, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Erik turned and found Fred in the doorway, wearing much the same expression.

“Is everything all right in here?” Fred asked.

“Fine, love. Everything’s fine,” said Charles, and Fred left with a nod.

Erik crossed his arms over his chest and grumbled, “You don’t have to call your boyfriend for backup.”

That seemed to cheer Charles almost as much as the sight of Fred in the doorway. “I didn’t, actually. But I have to admit, it is gratifying to see how jealous you are.”

“I am not!”

“You are, too!”

Erik pouted, then smirked, caught. “All right, maybe a little.”

Charles shook his head, smiling to himself, then crossed one leg over the other. “Well, I happen to know of an enormous house in northeastern Westchester that’s sitting vacant,” he said, getting back to the subject at hand. “I may not have started the school, but I did hang onto it just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case of you,” said Charles, a mischievous look on his face. “I’m not interested in being Headmaster Xavier again, but if you want to give it a shot, be my guest. I will support you in whatever you decide to do.”

Erik shook his head. “I doubt Magda would be interested in taking that on. Just talking about mutations frightens her. The only reason she’s accepted it even a little bit is because of Wanda and Pietro.”

“Then it’s just a house. And it’s big enough for four children, I can promise you that much, at least,” said Charles.

“And how do you imagine mutant history will unfurl without either one of us at the helm?”

“I suppose it will be a surprise,” Charles grinned. “Refreshing, isn’t it?”

 

*

 

By the following summer, the mailbox at 1407 Graymalkin Lane was filled with letters addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Lehnsherr, and the grounds were cleared to make way for a swingset for Jakob and a garden for Magda.

Charles came up from the city every weekend. Fred had been drafted and Charles couldn’t bear spending so much time in the townhouse without him, so from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, he was Uncle Charley, playing with the kids, cooking with Magda, and watching the news from Vietnam with Erik, praying that Fred would be safe.

“I wish he’d been a self-healer, like Logan,” he admitted quietly one Friday night, as he and Erik watched the 11 o’clock news.

“What’s his power again?” Erik teased. “He can bend his thumb backwards?”

Charles rolled his eyes. “His joints are fluid. He has unlimited mobility.”

“I bet that comes in handy.”

Charles glared at him. “Don’t be vulgar. He’s also a low-level empath.”

“You know, the dog always seems to know when I’ve had a bad day. Does that make him a low-level empath, too?”

Charles smacked his shoulder and tried not to laugh. “If anything happens to him, you’re going to feel terrible, you know that?”

Fred was shot in the leg during his seventh month overseas, and he would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Fortunately, though, it was a bad enough wound to send him home for good, and even more fortunately for Fred, he happened to have found a partner with seemingly unlimited patience and understanding when it came to his injury.

“Darling, are you sure you don’t want to sit down?” Charles asked him for the five millionth time.

“I’m fine, Charles,” Fred smiled, and squeezed his hand.

They were gathered in the family room at Graymalkin Lane watching the news again, but this time, instead of watching footage from the war, they were watching the birth of a new nation.

“ _The island of Genosha has officially been declared a sovereign nation,”_ Walter Cronkite reported. “ _Led by the figure known only as Mystique, Genosha is the first of its kind: a nation built by mutants for mutants. This is certainly a landmark day in human history, and perhaps the start of a new history altogether.”_

 

*

 

Charles stopped visiting every weekend after Fred came home. They still spent holidays together and gathered for major events, like the birth of Erik and Magda’s fifth child: a girl they named Natalia, whose hair was bright pink and whose mobile seemed to spin above her of its own accord. Magda had not been happy to discover she was pregnant again - Jacob was already eight years old by the time Natalia was born - but she doted on the little girl, their only child born in America. Charles and Fred doted on her, too, bringing more gifts to her first birthday party than they could carry.

“Did you ever imagine this?” Charles whispered to Erik as they stood in the doorway to Natalia’s room, at another time Jean Gray’s dorm, watching Magda and Fred play with the baby.

Erik put his arm around Charles’ shoulder and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, the mustache that Charles thought was hideous (but that Magda thought was dashing) brushing against Charles’ hairline.

“No,” he admitted. “Never.”

 

*

 

Erik died for the third time in the same bed, in the same room, on the same day, but this time he held Magda in his arms, her hair now white, his arms now wrinkled and stiff. They were wrapped in quilts that Magda had made herself, and downstairs their grandchildren slept peacefully.

When he woke again, he was thirty-five. He was in Magneto’s lair, alone and cold.


	2. Chapter 2

Fred died young. For his fifty-first birthday, he and Charles went to Rio de Janiero and had the time of their lives, but a clot in his bad leg that had developed during the long flight home moved to his lungs, and he died of a pulmonary embolism just one week after arriving home in New York.

Fred passed away long before gay marriage was ever talked about seriously, and as a result Charles wasn't even allowed in the hospital room to say goodbye. They'd had friends they'd made over the years, but for all his gregariousness and cheer, Fred was a very private man, and never felt fully comfortable allowing his and Charles' relationship to become public knowledge. Magda and Erik were the only people who truly knew Charles was a widower.

They tried to be supportive, and Charles appreciated them reaching out to him, inviting him to come and spend time at the house like he'd done while Fred was in Vietnam. But they'd grown apart. Over the last ten or fifteen years, Charles had only seen Erik and his family a handful of times. Charles and Fred had attended Anya's wedding, and they always invited the Lehnsherrs to their annual Christmas party (though it was rare that Erik and Magda actually attended). The last time Charles had seen Erik before Fred's funeral was at a farewell party for Wanda and Pietro three years prior - they had decided to leave the United States for Genosha. Erik had been jealous; he wanted so badly to join the mutant cause, but Magda wouldn't let him. It was too dangerous, she said. It was full of extremists and maniacs. The twins may have ignored Magda's warnings, but Erik wouldn’t. Though Erik lived in the old house in Westchester, his life was even more different from the one they’d shared than Charles’ was, and they no longer had anything in common.

But the townhouse was misery with Freddie gone. Everywhere Charles looked he saw Fred’s absence, from the photos from their travels to the pile of his laundry that Charles hadn’t had the heart to clean up yet. And the bookshelves. Despite his decision early on to avoid becoming Professor X all over again, Charles had stayed in academia, choosing instead to become a professor of English literature. Fred was a poet. Bookshelves lined every wall of their house, with Fred's handwriting scribbled in the margins on every page. Worse were Fred's notebooks filled with poems he'd written for Charles. They were all written in the second person - "you" instead of "he" - so as to avoid any uncomfortable questions from publishers. _You sing inside me forevermore_ , one read. Charles could hear Fred’s voice, reciting these words to him in the night. It was excruciating. He found himself sobbing at the J.C. Penny catalogue, thinking the cover model reminded him of Freddie. He couldn’t take it anymore. He decided take Erik up on his offer to come visit.

Charles hardly lasted the weekend there. Since Magda had forbidden him from joining the Mutant Revolution, as it was called this time around, Erik had continued the career he’d begun in poverty in Eastern Europe: construction. His contracting business was doing extremely well, in no small part due to the constant influx of cheap labor from his children, grandchildren, in-laws, Magda’s cousins and nephews and their children, and all the other odd distant relatives and acquaintances that had followed them to New York. The town that Charles best knew as the Capital of Mutant America was now better known locally as Little Budapest, home of the best goulash this side of the Atlantic (made by Magda’s third cousin, Margit).

The house was humming with activity day and night and always noisy with chatter in a language Charles couldn’t even try to understand. Erik was under constant stress and seemed to always be yelling at someone, yet somehow the house seemed cheerier for it. For all of his bellowing, the smallest children seemed to follow him everywhere, and no sooner would he have kicked everyone out of the house than Magda would have turned around and invited everyone to stay for lunch. It was lively and welcoming, but it was no place for Charles.

“I’m sorry that I haven’t had much time these past few days,” Erik told him when he found Charles packing his bag. “I was hoping we could find time for a chess game, at least.”

Charles shook his head. “I know you’re busy. It’s fine.”

“You don’t have to go. This is your house, and you’re my family as much as anyone else here. I hardly know half these people.”

(Just a few minutes earlier a little boy had run up to him and started tugging on his pantleg for attention. “Are you even related to me?” Erik had barked at him. “Get out of here! Go play outside!” The little boy had run off giggling.)

“This hasn’t been my house for a very long time.” Charles zipped his duffel bag shut.

Nor had Erik been his Erik for a very long time. Charles hardly recognized the man he’d loved for so long. His hair was left longish, curly and wild, and his English was still slightly accented. He carried himself like a reluctant king, and in a way he was: the king of Little Budapest, the unwitting center around which an entire community revolved. It helped his aura that he was physically larger than Charles had ever seen him in their other lives – no doubt the result of decades of homecooked meals and manual labor. Even the mind that Charles had known so well was clouded over, barely detectable behind a haze of stress, frustration, and a weary sort of pride.

“Are you going back to New York?” asked Erik.

“To pack, at least. But I was thinking I might go to Genosha.”

Weary pride turned to sharp jealousy. “You what?” he asked.

"I have another thirty years to live, and I don't intend to spend them crying into my bookshelves." Just saying it was nearly enough to set him off again. He held onto his composure, but that didn’t stop Erik from putting his hand on his shoulder in sympathy. "I'm all right, really. I'll be fine," Charles assured him, and took a breath. "I'm still young. Well, I’m not old yet, at least. I'm still in good shape. I can walk."  
  
"And you still have your hair."

"I do." His forehead was creeping slowly towards a bald spot in the back, and his temples were peppered with gray, but most of his hair remained. And it looked pretty good, if Charles said so himself. "Freddie nearly had a heart attack when I told him I was going to preemptively shave it all off. He didn't believe me when I told him I was going to lose it all anyway." Charles ran his hand across the top of his head, where the hair that remained was still soft and wavy. "I guess Cerebro did more damage than I thought."

From downstairs a male voice called for Erik, and Erik, looking angry, shouted back an answer. Charles didn’t understand a word of it, but he did understand the frustration pulsing from Erik as he rubbed his face in his hands and sighed. “I swear I don’t get one minute to myself, not one minute,” he confided. “I can’t even go to the bathroom without Magda stepping in when she feels like it. I’ll be in the shower and she’ll just come right in, asking me questions about what I want to eat or whether I’ve talked to Anya about something.”

“You could ask her not to.”

Erik scoffed. “I’ve tried that. She just rolls her eyes and tells me to lighten up.” He lifted Charles’ duffel bag onto his shoulder. “Let me drive you to the train station, at least.”

Charles went to kiss Magda goodbye and thank her for her hospitality, then followed Erik out to his truck: an enormous white pickup with LEHNSHERR CONSTRUCTION painted on the doors.

They rode in silence most of the way, until, at a stop light, Erik asked, “What if I went with you?”

“Where?”

“Where do you think? Genosha.” When Charles gave him a flat, unamused look, Erik continued, “I feel like I’ve completely missed out on all of mutant history. I hardly even use my powers anymore because Magda doesn’t like it, and Natalia just rolls her eyes at me when I try to talk to her about mutant rights. Wanda and Pietro are already there. You’re going. Maybe I should go, too.”

“You and I both know that you’re not going to abandon your family and move halfway around the world.” When Erik sighed in defeat, Charles took his hand. “You’ll stay here, with Magda. I wouldn’t be going, either, if Freddie were still around.”

Erik squeezed his hand, then after a moment, asked quietly, “Were you this distraught after I died?”

Charles thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think I was,” he admitted. “You were very old by that point, and your health had been going for some time. I was ready for it. And besides, we’d been together for more than a hundred years, all told. My time with Fred went by so fast, and then he was gone in the blink of an eye. Sometimes I hardly believe he was real.”

They didn’t share another word until they arrived at the train station.

“Here we are,” Erik said. “Do you want me to wait with you?”

“No, that’s not necessary. I’ll read my book. I’ll be fine.” He was carrying a dog-eared Genoshan travel guide, littered with Fred’s highlights and asterisks, marking places he’d wanted to see if they ever had a chance to visit.

“I’ll miss you,” said Erik. “Take care of yourself. Tell Wanda and Pietro we miss them.”

Charles pulled Erik in for a hug. “I will.”

“Do you think it will happen again?” Erik whispered into Charles’ shoulder.

“I don’t know. I hope not.”

“Me, too.”

 

*

 

Silly Charles. He’d thought that being the brother of the country’s founder would have been enough to get him a cabinet position, at least. If this were Magneto’s island, he could have been Prime Minister if he asked nicely. But Mystique had left Genosha, frustrated by bureaucracy and unsuited to the role of a figurehead, and taken off with Destiny to parts unknown. Emma Frost was the Prime Minister now, and as she had been in every life, she was thoroughly unimpressed with Charles.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Xavier. I would like to offer you a position, and I’m sure I owe it to Mystique to help you in any way I can, but you just don’t have any experience in mutant politics.”

“I have a Ph.D. in genetics,” Charles told her.

“Yes, I see that.” Emma glanced at her notes. “You earned a Ph.D. in biology with a focus on genetics from Oxford, and then six years later you earned a Ph.D. in English Literature from NYU.” She peered at him over the tops of her diamond-rimmed reading glasses. “Dare I ask why the career change?”

“I fell in love with a poet.”

Emma offered to make a call to the newly formed University of Genosha to see if they had any openings, but unfortunately there would not be a Genoshan cabinet position in Charles’ future. Not in this lifetime.

The money Charles received from the sale of the WestVillage townhouse he’d shared with Fred was enough to buy a villa overlooking HammerBay, with breadfruit trees growing in the garden and beautiful birds perching in his windows. He taught the occasional guest lecture at the University, but mostly he swam in the Indian Ocean and read novels in the hammock he’d hung between two palms on his property, wishing Fred was on the hammock beside him, reading over his shoulder. More than anything he just wanted to enjoy his life, and maybe have a little fun while he still could. He even took up surfing.

He was out on his board, along with some other older surfers he’d befriended, when an earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia, sending a record-setting tidal wave to Genosha’s shores. Charles paddled towards the beach, but he was sucked under the warm ocean water and churned and spun until he could no longer tell which way was up, and in his struggling he was thrust against the ocean floor, thrown head first into the sharp coral below. Blood clouded the water.

_"Professor! Professor, you're having another nightmare!"_

Charles gasped for breath. His lungs filled with saltwater. He tried to sit up against the crushing tide, but something was pulling him down. His legs were buried in the sand. He would drown – if he didn’t free his legs, he’d drown. The water rushed and shook him again.

"Professor!" Jean shook him by the shoulders.

Charles gasped again and opened his eyes. Young Jean Gray stood over his bed. He grasped for his legs - they weren't buried in sand at all. They were right there under the covers, as good as dead.   
  
It had happened.

Charles felt as though he were being pulled asunder again, his stomach churning like the tidal wave, but this time it was only nausea.

"You were projecting," Jean said quietly as Charles retched into the wastebasket. "Was that - did you dream you were surfing?"

Charles panted, attempting to steady his racing heart, and pushed the wastebasket away. "Get out."

"Do you need me to --"

"Get out!" he shouted, and Jean ran from the bedroom - his bedroom – Erik’s and Magda's bedroom - his and Erik's bedroom - and shut the door behind her.


End file.
